Pharisees and tax collectors get a lot of attention in our Gospel texts, and after generations of interpretation and familiarity with the stories they appear in, many of us here have likely inherited a caricature of both: the pharisee as an arrogant, self-righteous, inflexible conservative, who Jesus seems to constantly criticize and argue with; and the tax collector, someone of more simple stock, an ordinary man, perhaps, dubiously employed, for sure, but cruelly excluded and peripheralized by his own people.…
Jeremiah 31:27-34 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals. And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord. In those days they shall no longer say: “The parents have eaten sour grapes,and the…
Luke 17:11-19 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud…
Luke 17:5-10 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, `Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. “Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, `Come here at once and take your place at the table’? Would you not rather say…
